


Fo(u)nd Poetry

by sariagray



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, Poetry, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-29
Updated: 2012-03-29
Packaged: 2017-11-02 16:03:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370823
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariagray/pseuds/sariagray
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John wants to know what they mean, these scraps, these chunks of poetry pulled out of context and left around the flat like some obscure, verbose treasure hunt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fo(u)nd Poetry

**Author's Note:**

> Beta'd by analineblue.

John finds the first sheet of paper on the kitchen counter, next to a vial of deep blue-black liquid and three beakers that contain differing measures of fine white powder. The words on the page are black and beckoning, irrefutably sprawling line after line after line. At the bottom, there is a timestamp which dates the printing to a little less than three months prior.

He knows it’s a poem because of its structure, even though he hasn’t yet read the words; a smattering of letters per line –squat stanzas that stretch to the bottom of the page. 

He leans against the counter, shoulders slouched, and drinks from his mug of tea as he looks at the words. The typeface is plain, artistically simple, and a bit pretentious for all of that. A bit strange, too, to find a poem nestled amidst the chemical host that has invaded the kitchen. 

John grabs the second mug and walks it into the sitting room, where Sherlock reclines in haphazard angles on the sofa. He sets the mug down and clears his throat, despite knowing that nothing he could do would rouse Sherlock’s attention from his book.

Still, he reads aloud from the page, his voice slipping around the sounds like a child learning the different shapes of vowels. “It helped through the wars and the hangovers, the backalley fights, the hospitals. To awaken in a cheap room in a strange city and pull up the shade- this was the craziest kind of contentment. And to walk across the floor to an old dresser with a cracked mirror- see myself, ugly, grinning at it all.”

“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire,” Sherlock finishes, his attention still turned away; it sounds more like a factual observation than a reading, and John has to check that the words on the page match, just to be sure.

“I found it,” Sherlock continues lazily, “in the boy’s bedroom. It was interesting.”

“The strangulation case last week,” John confirms and sets the paper down next to the mug.

* * *

_Neutrinos, they are very small.  
They have no charge and have no mass  
And do not interact at all.  
The earth is just a silly ball  
To them, through which they simply pass,  
Like dustmaids down a drafty hall  
Or photons through a sheet of glass.  
They snub the most exquisite gas,  
Ignore the most substantial wall,  
Cold-shoulder steel and sounding brass,  
Insult the stallion in his stall,  
And, scorning barriers of class,  
Infiltrate you and me! Like all  
And painless guillotines, they fall  
Down through our heads into the grass.  
At night, they enter at Nepal  
And pierce the lover and his lass  
From underneath the bed - you call  
It wonderful; I call it crass._

It’s taped onto the bathroom mirror. John laughs.

* * *

Three days later, John finds the following on a yellowed page, torn from an old book.

_Ich ging im Walde  
So für mich hin,  
Und nichts zu suchen,  
Das war mein Sinn.  
Im Schatten sah ich  
Ein Blümchen stehn,  
Wie Sterne leuchtend,  
Wie Äuglein schön.  
Ich wollt es brechen,  
Da sagt es fein:  
Soll ich zum Welken  
Gebrochen sein?  
Ich grub's mit allen  
Den Würzlein aus.  
Zum Garten trug ich's  
Am hübschen Haus.  
Und pflanzt es wieder  
Am stillen Ort;  
Nun zweigt es immer  
Und blüht so fort._

It takes him the better part of a week to get around to translating it, and even then he isn’t sure he’s any wiser as to why it’s taken up residence in the microwave.

* * *

John has tried poking at a touch screen before, to no avail, so it’s always with a good deal of wonder that he watches Sherlock’s own fingers fly rapid-fire over the digitized keypad without even looking. He’s like that, Sherlock is – gracefully coaxing out words and information and, when the mood strikes, music. 

John’s fingers are certainly capable – he _is_ a doctor, after all – but their purpose is to put things back together and they are steady and solid, not flighty, sparrow-like things. He folds up his newspaper and settles it on his lap. 

“New case?” he asks.

Sherlock turns his head to the window, as though the answer to John’s question is written there on the drawn curtains. 

“I wander thro' each charter'd street,” he begins, voice low, “near where the charter'd Thames does flow, and mark in every face I meet marks of weakness, marks of woe. In every cry of every Man, in every Infant's cry of fear, in every voice, in every ban, the mind-forg'd manacles I hear. How the Chimney-sweeper's cry every black'ning Church appalls; and the hapless Soldier's sigh runs in blood down Palace walls.”

It’s an incantation of sorts; John can hear the resonation of the words as they bounce off of the old wooden desks and stone walls, can feel the dark eyes of an instructor as he measures elocution, despite these things being locked in the past. But there’s a fondness in Sherlock’s voice, too, that warms away the boorish chill of dull recitation. 

“Blake,” Sherlock says after the words taper off into the not-quite silence of the flat at night. 

“I’ll take that as a yes, then.”

“You’ll want to bring your gun.”

It’s the only warning John gets before Sherlock sweeps by in coat and scarf and excitement.

* * *

He wants to know what they mean, these scraps, these chunks of poetry pulled out of context and left around the flat like some obscure, verbose treasure hunt. 

He mentions it, once, over tea with Mrs. Hudson. Casually, with the same tense set of mouth that he uses to say, “Did you know he’s filled the bathtub with acid again?” or “I don’t know if I can trust the sugar.”

But now it’s, “Sherlock’s leaving poetry around the flat.”

It’s not meant to be a complaint, but Mrs. Hudson takes it as one. She halts mid-pour, the tea sloshing from its pot and marring the white linen table cloth with light brown splotches; they stretch out redolently.

“Well, no harm in that.” She pauses. “He isn’t writing it on the walls, is he?”

John shakes his head, sips his tea like a proper guest, and sighs. “No, I think he’s temporarily over abusing _those_.”

It’s still raining with the dim fury of autumn when he’s done with his visit, and Sherlock’s not yet back from Bart’s, so he retires to the flat and the warm comfort of his laptop. He scours page after page of poetry, from Shakespeare to Dickenson to Heaney. Somehow, he ends up researching patron saints (there are none for detectives, but Jude the Apostle is the patron saint of lost causes, desperate situations, and hospitals, which seems sufficient) and recipes for sole in the process.

Finally, by sheer luck, he stumbles upon something he didn’t know he’d been looking for, something that makes him pause in the reading of it, for all its brevity. He copies it out in thick black lines on the front of yesterday’s paper, his penmanship sloped and odd-looking with the effort of making it legible.

_Over the wintry  
forest, winds howl in rage  
with no leaves to blow._

He leaves it on the couch and then forgets about it.

The words may be too vague or too obvious, but the front page of the paper – writing and all – is gone the next morning.

* * *

In the waste basket, when emptying the rubbish because Sherlock certainly can’t be bothered, John finds a torn off bit of thick paper that has been meticulously crumpled into a ball. It looks like any piece of scrap, but there’s something about it that begs to be read even as it hides itself beneath a banana peel, old rice, and used teabags.

He smoothes it out against the wall. 

“I do not love you,” it reads, “as if you were salt-rose, or topaz, or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off. I love you as certain dark things are to be loved, in secret, between the shadow and the soul.”

He folds it, carefully, and tucks it into his wallet. He’s not even sure if this (if _any_ of it) was meant for him, but he’ll keep it all the same, thanks.

**Author's Note:**

> This story was inspired by my accidental descent into a poetry search. I was looking for something in particular, and ended up with a handful of poems I liked and the little snapshots that surrounded them. 
> 
> The poems are, in order:
> 
> "How Is Your Heart?" Charles Bukowski  
> "Cosmic Gall" John Updike  
> "Gerfunden" Johann Wolfgang von Goethe [(translation)](http://german.about.com/library/blgefunden.htm)  
> "London" William Blake  
> Haiku by Natsume Soseki  
> "XVII (I do not love you...)" Pablo Neruda

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Podfic: Fo(u)nd Poetry](https://archiveofourown.org/works/566602) by [AfroGeekGoddess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AfroGeekGoddess/pseuds/AfroGeekGoddess)




End file.
